The Banks of Cauvery

All of Pongianna Goundar’s life, he was suffering from an auto-immune skin disease called Psoriasis. Every day he would go to his father’s samadhi on the banks of Cauvery in Erod. One fateful night, as he was deep in slumber, when the form of his deceased father appeared before him. It startled him. It had been a long time since the remembrance of his father came to him

“Pongu” his father called out to him using his childhood nickname. “There is a sadhu sitting on my samadhi. Ask him for healing from your disease”

On the banks of Cauvery in Erod, a white structure marked the samadhi of a land owner. Swamiji settled under this structure as he ended his parivrajaka. To someone who doesn’t know this young swami is looking for some shade to sit under. Swamiji, however, was seated in his ashram.

Pongianna Goundar left the next morning to the his father’s samadhi where Swamiji was sitting, still startled by the unreal vision that he had the night before. Just as he had dreamed, an orange clad swami sat under the white rock that he has placed there many years before when his father passed away. Suddenly struck by an incredible humbleness to whatever universal power that connected him with this swami, he approached Swamiji and collapsed in front of him in namaskar.
It took a matter of few days for all the psoriasis scars to disappear entirely. His diseased had even progressed to a rare from of arthritis but Swamiji healing energy flowed through his bones and cartilage and rejuvenating every cell. He was a completely new person in a few days. In utter gratitude for the new hope that Swamiji had given him, Pongianna Goundar donated his land around his father’s samadhi to Swamiji.
“Please, Swamiji, accept this” he told Swamiji as he handed him the documents.
Swamiji smiled gracefully and took the paper into his hands.

This land became the first ashram that Swamiji ever established. It became a historical area. Swamiji himself built the hut that he stayed in. From there, for close to a year, he stayed and healed thousands of people just as he healed Pongianna Goundar.